It is commonly believed
that the ecocentric root of modern environmentalism is
'nourished by the philosophies of the romantic transcendentalists of mid-nineteenth-
century America'. These advocated a democracy among God's creatures, such that
nature was respected for its own sake, above and beyond its usefulness or
relationship to man. Therefore man had a moral obligation towards nature not simply
for the pleasure of man, but as a biotic right'.
However, while man
might not be necessary to nature, the ecocyntric says that
nature is necessary for man. Natural architecture has a grandeur which both
humbles and ennobles man and stimulates him to emulate it. Wild nature ... is an
integral companion to man' necessary for his emotional, spiritual and physical
wellbeing in the face of pressures from sophisticated and artificial urban living. While
there is not necessarily any biological or economic justification in the bioethical value
system ecocentrism is wide enough to embrace also the views of those who argue
for nature on more pragmatic and rational grounds.
This argument, from
an essentially scientific ecosystems perspective, puts man
within nature, as part of natural ecosystems. Consequently, anything which man
does affects the rest of the global system and "^reverberates through it - eventually
back on to him. So, for his own sake, he should not plunder, exploit and destroy
natural ecosystems - because in so doing he is destroying the biological foundation
of his own life. Man is seen as subject to biological laws just as much as is the rest
of nature, and so he must contribute to the stability and mutual harmony of the
ecosystems of which he is a part. The biological law of carrying capacity has already
been mentioned in this respect, but other 'laws' governing population size and
dynamics, or laws of thermodynamics or laws governing systems behaviour (e.g.
diversity equals stability) are held to apply also to social and economic man. Indeed,
the whole paraphernalia of systems terminology is applied by the ecological school -
sometimes to extremes which are faintly ludicrous.
If we see the goal of
our system as that of capital formation through the pursuit of
profits, then it is usually 'economic' to replace labour with machinery in doing work.
But if the goal of our system is to produce happy and fulfilled people, then it makes
economic sense to support an organisation of work which creates jobs but does not
necessarily maximise profits. Schumacher was much concerned with work, and the
need for it to be fulfilling and creative. To improve the quality of work as part of an
improved quality of life he proposed to reject the notion that 'high' (i.e. sophisticated
and capital-intensive) technology is of merit for its own sake. He sought to encourage
the development of simple machines which could be accessible to - and owned by -
the majority of people, and which could be mixed in with manual labour to derive a
partially-mechanised production process that would generate work. Thus the division-
of-labour/production-line philosophy of classical economics would be deliberately
destroyed. Schumacher's ideas have been put extensively into practice in the Third
World as well as in Europe, and he elaborated upon them in Good Work (1980),
published after his death.
Limits, self-reliance,
self-sufficiency, small-scale production, low-impact technology,
recycling, zero population and economic growth -these are all key words in the
standard ecocentric vocabulary, which is liberally sprinkled through the three
landmark publications described above. The Blueprint and Small is Beautiful are
undoubtedly 'ecocentric' in outlook, though Limits has technocentric as well as
ecocentric characteristics.
In discussing the ideological
cross-currents of environmentalism, 'conservative
ecocentrist' is distingished from 'liberal ecocentrist'. The former embraces the
morality of limits and of lifeboat ethics, and the adherents of ecocentrist ideology
belong to the no- growth school and to the ecological planners and amenity
protectionists. The latter are classed as a 'radical ecological activists' - i.e. an
'environmental educator' or citizen, who generally 'seeks fundamental changes in the
values, attitudes and behaviour of individuals and social institutions through example
and enlightenment, not by revolution or chaos'. The reveal themselves, to be
politically more to the right than the former.
